


Legend

by fmo



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Alternate Universe - Future, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-20
Updated: 2014-02-20
Packaged: 2018-01-13 03:53:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1211599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fmo/pseuds/fmo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU: future setting, much sci-fi and transhumanism, cyborgs, cyberpunk, etc.</p><p>In the year 3014, humanity is facing extermination at the end of a very long alien war. The Hulk, a sentient warship merged with its once-human pilot, tells Iron Man, the last scion of the Starks, that he has an idea for humanity's salvation. Thor, the oddball archivist of the ancient, corrupted files from humanity's past, believes that there might be some truth to the legend of the Captain, an embodiment of goodness who awakens to help humankind when they are in direst need. With the help of War Machine, a leader of the Earth forces, Falcon, a retired elite Redwing pilot, Hawkeye, the warfleet's best exploit agent, and Widow, the now mostly-alien former spy, among others, Iron Man needs to figure out if the Captain is real, and, if so, how to find him and wake him--because the legend says that only a Stark can do it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Legend

Iron Man misses the Hulk when he’s gone, although it’s not like they can’t talk. Even when the Hulk’s at the front line and Iron Man’s back in his tower at Tactical, their conversation’s always still flowing, encoded, through the battles and the vastness of space.

 _When’re you coming home, ship of my heart?_ Iron Man asks Hulk again when he’s tired of sorting through the same set of battle plans. None of them will lead to a victory, and reprogramming them isn’t going to change that, no matter what Fury thinks. _The Tower’s not the same without you_. Iron Man leans back in his chair and clears the layers of data from his view, revealing the strange, chaotic greenery of his favorite habitat room. Has he physically been sitting all this time in Habitat 5? Well, it's not like it really matters. Wearing the suit to interact with the physical world is just a habit at this point--one of his many eccentricities, probably.

 _You mean the Stark Fortress isn't the same without me?_ Hulk says dryly.

Obviously Hulk is feeling sassy today; Iron Man grins to himself.  _It’s my Tower; I’m gonna call it a tower,_ he replies. _There’s been Stark Towers for almost a thousand years on Earth, I’ll have you know. It’s a fine tradition._ After all, the thing is tower-shaped, even if it’s in orbit around Mars rather than actually attached to the Earth. And he is Iron Man Mark 5,399, as Stark a Stark as ever has been. The last Stark, in fact.

 _Since when were you a traditionalist?_ is the Hulk's rejoinder. _Anyways, I’m actually heading back in the next few days. Need your data-gathering skills for a new plan._ Hulk's being low-key like always, but it sounds like there might be something bigger going on there.

Iron Man perks up. _New plan? New plans are my favorite plans. But who’s ‘we’? Don’t tell me you’ve been in cahoots with SHIELD_.

_Yes. Widow and Hawkeye are arriving to meet with you tomorrow, Thor the day after. Don’t be rude to them; this is important. Got to go, going into comms blackout._

And that leaves Iron Man with silence again. He likes Fury, because Fury’s awful implacability is kind of comforting these days, but some of Fury’s people give him the creeps. Including Widow and Hawkeye.

Anyway, joking aside, they do need a new plan. Despite Iron Man’s best work, and all their best people on the front lines, and all of Fury’s determination, they are losing. They’ve been losing for about two hundred years, despite the Stark line's efforts throughout that time, but recently at night Iron Man’s been afraid that all that "losing" is about to finally turn into just "lost." And that means extermination not only for the poor remnants of old Earth, but all of humanity as well.

He tells Jarvis to prep the guest rooms and picks up a schematic he’s been working on. Just an idea that’s too good to be true, but he needs to keep doing something, just in case the Hulk’s plan doesn’t work. Whatever it is.

 _Jarvis_ , he says contemplatively.  _Where's Rhodey?_  

 _Shockingly, War Machine Admiral 54 is still down at Martia Tactical, sir_ , Jarvis says. Only down on the surface. It's nice to know Rhodey is so close by.

Iron Man's been told many times not to rudely ping Rhodey without any notification, so he tells Jarvis,  _Ask him if he can come up. Something big might be brewing._

 

* * *

 

Widow’s the first to arrive the next day. Her guest room needs special modifications; due to her undercover work, she’s got a lot of alien physiology now. Some of it, at least, could be re-humanized with surgery, but Widow doesn’t seem to feel the need to change anything. The thing that always stands out to Iron Man, though, is that she still has a cloud of lovely red hair. It’s a strangely soft and human element on a body that’s decidedly no longer human.   

 _Stark_ , she says, settling into the big circle chair that she always likes.

“Widow,” he says. “I don’t suppose Hulk’s shared his little secret with you?”

 _I know what the plan is_ , she says. _You’re not going to like it_.

Well, he has always appreciated her honesty. “But you’re not going to tell until the party’s started.” Iron Man sighs. “Can you at least explain why on Mars it requires me, you, Hawkeye, and _Thor_ of all people?”

She examines him for a moment, and finally says, _It’s to do with Thor’s work._

“What?” This truly surprises him, and that’s rare. “What could be that useful in a cache of corrupted old nonsense files from a hundred years ago?”

But that’s when Hawkeye arrives, so the conversation has to pause so that he and Widow can catch up with each other. It's the first time Iron Man's ever seen Hawkeye's body, and Iron Man can't help but think that he and Widow make a funny pair. Anyone would take Hawkeye for normal gen human infantry: he's aggressively average-looking on the outside, modded only with the regulation military medical nanos, direct link circs, that kind of thing. Only the inner Avenger forces (StarkInfantry, SHIELD, Asgard, Redwings, and so on) would know that Hawkeye is the best of their exploit agents. While Widow changes her form to mingle behind enemy lines in the physical world, Hawkeye slips unnoticed into enemy networks in the data-world. In fact, he's usually the one invisibly watching over Widow through borrowed enemy eyes, triggering a tiny glitch here or inserting a bug there to help get Widow access or to get her out and safe home.

And yet, the way they talk, all in partial thoughts, it's easy to tell they work as two halves of a pair. Widow might even be smiling, a little.

“Stark,” Hawkeye nods to him, after he and Widow are done with their cryptic semi-conversation. “Been a while since I’ve been your face.”

The face remark is a little rude; Iron Man pops off his faceplate so that Hawkeye can see the electronics beneath. He holds out the faceplate. “You’re welcome to examine my face at your leisure, if you like.” Really, he hardly ever thinks about the body down in the protective shell in the lab at the center of the Tower. This _is_ his face, not that flimsy flesh-and-bone thing he left behind long ago.

 _Stop_ , Widow says. _We don’t have time for this_. _Barton, I have some info to show you. Stark, we’ll talk again when the others are here._

Iron Man puts the faceplate back on again and watches them go off to Widow’s quarters. They always allude to having known one another for a very long time; he wonders if Hawkeye knew Widow while she was still mostly human. He wonders what she was like then.

 

* * *

 

Fortunately, Rhodey is next to arrive. Never one for unnecessary grandeur, he arrives as War Machine in a beautiful silver flash tearing up through Mars' atmosphere. But of course it's beautiful, because Iron Man made it for Rhodey, and Rhodey gets only gets the very best of the Stark line. 

Rhodey enters right away in the airlock to the observation deck, shedding the suit's exterior pieces as soon as he's inside.

"What's going on, Tony?" he asks. His face is worried, like it always is, and older, like it always is. If only Rhodey would take the permanent uplink and let Iron Man complete War Machine--and he will, Iron Man knows he will, but. Battle plans come and go, planets are gained and lost, the Stark Fortress (Tower) remains, and it's only Rhodey's face that reminds Iron Man that the universe is growing older. If only Rhodey was safely uplinked in the heart of the Tower, next to Tony, next to Pepper.

"Tony?" Rhodey says, waving a hand in front of Iron Man's face. "That you?"

"Sorry, honeybear, just lost in thought," Iron Man says, coming to life from his reflective pose on the couch facing the vast windows. 

"So what's this about?" Rhodey asks again, but he looks relieved enough to let Iron Man pull him into the usual gentle hug. "And you're calling me a predator why?"

"Great question," Iron Man says. He remembers catching the word somewhere in the oceans of data he sifts through daily, but he has no idea where. "I don't know, it just sounded good. Bears were cute, though, right? We should ask Thor."

But Thor is, typically, late, so the Hulk ends up arriving before him, and in his typical battered state, too. As soon as the Hulk docks at the Tower, Iron Man sends out his best mechanics to start repairs. For all that the incredible Hulk is the most fearsome warship on their side, it tends to draw fire to itself.

 _You okay there?_ Iron Man asks.

 _Fine. No damage to the cockpit_ , Hulk says, and, really, that’s all that matters. As long as the very, very well protected human body and accompanying brilliant mind at the heart of the Hulk aren’t damaged, the ship can rise again.

Then Thor’s arrival interrupts Iron Man’s fretting, and Thor is a strange enough person in himself to distract Iron Man entirely. He's the only person Iron Man's ever known who has no body tech at all—not even the regular ocular implants, not even the standard health nanotech. His total inability to direct link with any of the tech around him is most likely the cause of his tardiness. But what’s even stranger about Thor is the boisterous physicality of him that makes him seem as though he stepped right out of an ancient era. Thor’s arms are the size of Iron Man’s thighs, and Iron Man knows it wasn't nanites or genengineering that got them that way. No, Thor actually lifts heavy things over and over again, apparently. The guy just seems out of place on any spacecraft; he’s so big in scale and so full of energy that any walls just seem to constrain him.

And as far as Iron Man can tell, Thor really lives in his own little world; Iron Man’s pretty sure that the only tech Thor uses is the readers to help him parse through his beloved old corrupted ancient files.  If it wasn’t for his ever-patient girlfriend, Thor would be terribly isolated. Although he must be very alone anyway, Iron Man thinks, without the ability to talk to anyone like Iron Man talks to Hulk. He can't even speak to the woman he loves without having to set up tech to create a link for him.

Once Hulk's repairs are underway, though, they manage to assemble in the Tower’s conference room: Widow and Hawkeye, Rhodey, Thor, and Iron Man. As usual, Jarvis will vocalize the Hulk’s words for Thor’s benefit, since Thor can’t listen through direct link.

“Okay, Hulk, this is your show. Spill the beans,” Iron Man says.

 _All right_ , Hulk says. He’s never really liked being the center of attention. _Well. Have you guys heard of the Captain?_

**Author's Note:**

> Some credit is due to Outlaw Star, because I definitely kind of turned Bruce Banner into Melfina. I played on the meaning of "hulk" as a big, perhaps broken ship. 
> 
> Let me know your thoughts!


End file.
